Obama picks Joe Biden to head gun violence committee

Just five days after the second deadliest school shooting in the nation’s history, President Obama has picked Vice President Joe Biden to lead a task force to investigate and come up with a proposal to help stop gun violence.

In a press conference Wednesday morning, Obama said that the group will “concrete proposals no later than January -- proposals that I then intend to push without delay.”

“This is not some Washington commission,” the president explained. “This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now.”

He added that just because the issue of gun control is complex “can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing.”

According to Fox News, Obama said that he had picked Biden because of his role in the 1994 assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Obama did not make any specific policy announcements and assured Americans that their gun rights will be protected.

“The fact is the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible. But you know what -- I am also betting that the majority, the vast majority of responsible law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war,” he explained.

The president also asked Congress to act on the issue as soon as possible. Lawmakers have already begun calls for stricter laws and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein already said that she will re-introduce the 1994 assault weapons ban.

The announcement comes as Newtown, Connecticut continues to hold funerals for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Adam Lanza is suspected of killing 20 children and six adults.

Victoria "Vicki" Soto, one of the adults, was buried today. She was a first grade teacher who shielded her students from gunfire.